


Scorched Earth

by Traincat



Category: Fantastic Four (Comicverse)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 21:52:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15542919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Traincat/pseuds/Traincat
Summary: “I had – I thought I had enough left,” Johnny murmured, looking lost. “I haven’t been using my powers, and – I thought…”“I think you’ll live,” Ben said, as gravely as he could, cutting Johnny off. Johnny flicked his gaze up at him, confused. Ben huffed. “You’re fine, you baby. C’mon now. We knew this would happen sooner or later.”It had only been a matter of time. The last of Ben’s rocks had fallen off weeks before, and Johnny’s powers had started failing before his. Ben was surprised his immunity to heat had lasted as long it had.Johnny's powers fail. Set before and during Marvel Two-In-One (2017) #8.





	Scorched Earth

**Author's Note:**

> I'll stop writing Marvel Two-In-One timestamps when it stops giving me so many feelings. Someone please hug Johnny Storm. Set before and during Marvel Two-In-One (2017) #8. References to suspected suicidal behavior, but nothing stronger than what's actually in the comic. 
> 
> Also, we deserved more Johnny angst about villainous Peter Parker, so that's what I'm bringing to the table.

They were three weeks in, the first time Johnny burned himself on the stove.

Ben had had to hustle once he’d lost the rocky shell that marked him as the Thing, Battleworld fugitive and number one on the Spider’s hitlist, but now he had a steady job that paid a little short of halfway decent and they had a place that was, if not nice, at least a roof over their heads. He’d been looking forward to teasing Johnny about things not being up to little lord Fauntleroy’s usual standards, but Johnny had immediately thrown himself into scrubbing the floors and fixing the curtains on the kitchen windows, focusing on every task with a singleminded intensity Ben had rarely seen from Johnny where a vintage car wasn’t involved.

In the end Ben couldn’t say anything, not even when a photograph of him and Johnny sitting with Reed and Sue, all of them smiling for the camera and frozen in the moment, found itself taped above the stove. If it made the kid happy, Ben told himself, then he could bear it. Just one more straw wouldn’t break the Thing’s back.

But he wasn’t the Thing anymore. He wasn’t even Ben Grimm. He was Dan Masters, and Dan Masters’ back was damn near close to breaking.

It was the shout that woke him from where he slept in the battered old armchair he’d dragged home from the dump one night. Startled, he was on his feet and sprinting into the kitchen before he even knew it.

Johnny was holding his reddened hand in front of himself, staring at it in confusion.

“The stove _bit_ me!” he told Ben, turning those big blue eyes on him.

“Jesus, kid,” Ben said, grabbing his hand and turning on the faucet. Johnny yelped again as Ben forced his hand under the water. “I know you’re a dimmer bulb than usual these days, but do you seriously not remember what being burned feels like?”

“That hurts!” Johnny said, futilely attempting to tug his burned hand out of Ben’s grip. Ben kept his hand under the faucet spray, even as Johnny struggled like a wet cat. He was used to being bigger than Johnny, but rarely like this – his fingers encircled Johnny’s wrist entirely, but he didn’t have to worry about crushing it if he gripped too hard, so he let himself squeeze in warning. “Ben!”

“Shuddup,” Ben told him. “Cold water’s good for burns. You should know that, you walking matchstick.”

“Burned?” Johnny said, frowning at their hands as the water cascaded over his skin. “But that’s not – I haven’t been – I can’t –” Ben watched as the realization crept over his face; no more powers, no more immunity to fire or heat. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Ben said, shutting off the faucet. He let go of Johnny’s wrist, but Johnny stayed where he was, apparently cowed into submission by reality. Ben took the opportunity inspect his injured palm.

“I had – I thought I had enough left,” Johnny murmured, looking lost. “I haven’t been using them, and – I thought…”

“I think you’ll live,” Ben said, as gravely as he could, cutting Johnny off. Johnny flicked his gaze up at him, confused. Ben huffed. “You’re fine, you baby. C’mon now. We knew this would happen sooner or later.”

It had only been a matter of time. The last of Ben’s rocks had fallen off weeks before, and Johnny’s powers had started failing before his. Ben was surprised his immunity to heat had lasted as long it had, but then Johnny always had been stubborn as a forest fire.

Johnny flexed his hand and made a face.

“It _hurts_ ,” he said, actually pouting at Ben. Ben slung his arm around Johnny shoulders, pulling him in against his side and jostling him in a little.

“Yeah,” he said. “They do that. Listen, after work I’ll get you some ointment to put on that, make it heal faster. Until then, let’s get it wrapped up, okay?”

 

* * *

 

The kitchen was full of smoke when Ben got home, and Johnny was coughing miserably in the hallway, his fist raised to his face.

Ben regretted not stopping at the diner on the way back for a couple of burgers. He thought the waitress there might have had a little bit of a crush on him – she always gave him extra pickles. If Ben knew his women, that was a sure sign she’d fallen for a bit of the ol’ Grimm charm.

“Alright,” he said, hanging up his threadbare coat. “What’d ya do this time, kid?”

“It’s not my fault!” Johnny said, throwing his hands in the air. They were bandaged again, Ben noted. They hadn’t been when he’d left the house. Johnny had done a bad job wrapping himself up, but what else was new. “The stove is faulty!”

The stove _was_ faulty; the back burner wouldn’t light, and sometimes in the morning Ben had to kick it to get the oven to work. Still, he didn’t think the poor old rusted junk bucket was entirely at fault here.

There was a pot on the stove, smoke still spiraling up from under the lid. Johnny watched with obvious trepidation as Ben lifted the lid and wafted the smoke away.

“Now what the hell was this supposed to be?” Ben asked, arching an eyebrow. “Never thought ya could burn water, kid. Always seemed like that was more of Suzie’s deal…” He spotted the misshapen lumps floating in the broth among the chunks of vegetables, everything simultaneously charred and soggy. “Cripes, is this what I think it is? Matzo ball soup?”

Johnny crossed his arms over his chest and looked away. “Your Aunt Petunia’s recipe. It was supposed to be a surprise.”

“Oh, I’m surprised, alright.” Ben fished a spoon out of the drawer to poke at a matzo ball, half afraid it would grow arms and poke back. Instead it just floated there, sad and off-beige.

Nobody had ever accused Benjamin J. Grimm of being a coward. He dipped his spoon into the soup and, with the fortitude of a man who had looked Galactus in the eyes, took a careful sip.

Then he turned and spit it out in the sink.

“It’s not that bad!” Johnny protested.

“Yeah?” Ben said, wiping his mouth off on the back of his hand. “You try it, then.”

Johnny’s gaze strayed to the pot. “… I already ate.”

“Convenient,” Ben muttered. “What the hell, kid? You’re usually a good cook.”

“I don’t know,” Johnny said, scrubbing one of his bandaged hands through his hair. “I don’t – I’m not used to this. Before, I always knew if the stove was on too hot or too cold – now, it’s like – it’s like I don’t understand anything at all.” He bit his lip for a second, glancing at the floor. “I miss it.”

Reed had used to talk sometimes about what he called Johnny’s “innate understanding of fire.” Ben had never paid it much attention. It seemed like no big deal to him when the kid could pop popcorn without ever having to leave the couch during a movie marathon. Why should he care that the kid understood a forest fire better than Smoky the Bear when he also made perfect chicken wings for Ben’s poker night every time?

Ben never realized how much of Johnny’s daily life had been tied into his powers until he’d had to watch him without them.

“It’s okay, kid,” Ben said, reaching over and squeezing the back of Johnny’s neck. He shook him a little. “Aunt Petunia never has to find out about this one.”

Johnny snorted, but not like it was funny. Ben read the underlying message anyway: _that’s if we ever get out of here._

He let Johnny go with a sigh, turning away from him.

“Listen,” he said. “I’ll go get us a couple’a burgers from the diner, yeah? Chili cheese on the side for me and one of those salads you like for my kid brother Jimmy, who can’t cook worth a damn…”

He reached for his hat and his wallet, left sitting on the sideboard. They couldn’t really afford to eat out again, but like hell Ben was going to eat anything else the kid attempted tonight. The wallet held a couple of crumpled bills and the fake ID Amadeus had made for him, the one bearing Dan and Alicia’s names.

“They don’t think I’m really your brother,” Johnny said. Ben stopped cold in the doorway. He could feel Johnny’s eyes burning a hole into his back, even without his powers, like he was daring Ben to say something. “You know that, right?”

Ben paused, his hand on the doorknob.

“Don’t matter me to what anyone else thinks,” he said after a moment, gruffly. “You’re my family, kid. You know _that_ , right?”

When he looked over his shoulder, Johnny was staring at the photo again, his bandaged hand resting on the corner. There was nothing but longing on his face.

Ben pushed himself away from the door frame and out of the house, the lie weighing heavy in his chest.

 

* * *

 

One of the worst things about being stranded was how sure Johnny seemed to be that Victor Von Doom, of all people, would come back for them.

“He’s Doctor freakin’ Doom, kid,” Ben said, for what had to have been the eleventh time. “He’s gone and he ain’t coming back for us. Pretty sure that’s against some Latverian amendment of whatchamacallit.”

“You can’t believe that,” Johnny said, actually staring out the damned window, like tall, mean, and green was going to materialize on the horizon at any moment, his cape flapping in the nonexistent breeze. It was one of those hot, sticky summer days where it felt like there wasn’t enough air in the room, and Ben didn’t need Johnny making it worse by mooning over the idea of Doctor Doom swooping in like some emerald knight on a mechanical horse.

If the day’s heat was getting to Johnny, he didn’t say, but there was a sheen of sweat on his skin as he forced the window open before he turned back to the stove. With the Spider out for their skins – literally, Ben was pretty sure – they’d quickly (and unhappily on Johnny’s part) agreed that it would be stupid for Johnny to get a job. The Spider was looking for the Thing and the Human Torch, and Ben wasn’t exactly rocky these days. He’d been a kid from Yancy Street before he’d ever been a bigshot superhero; when he had to, Ben knew how to keep his head down and blend in. With any luck, this version of Peter Parker would have never even seen Ben Grimm’s face.

Johnny always stood out, no matter where he went. Even now, Ben worried whenever Johnny slipped out to the market or the drugstore while Ben was at work – would someone recognize him? Would they call it in? Would he get home one day, and Johnny would be gone?

He worried about that last one a lot, for a host of different reasons. His breath always caught as the old junker Johnny had restored for him pulled into the driveway, or when he put his hand on the doorknob. But then the door would open and Johnny would be in the kitchen, attempting to learn all the words to the songs on this universe’s Top 40, scrubbing dishes or making instant coffee in anticipation for Ben’s trip home.

Sometimes he’d even look over his shoulder and smile at him, and Ben would feel like maybe – just maybe – things would be okay.

Then he’d ask Ben if Amadeus had found anything, and it would all come crashing down on Ben again.

“Not yet, kid,” he’d say as he hung up his hat, knowing full well this version of Amadeus hadn’t found anything, and wouldn’t find anything the next day, because there was nothing to find. “But you gotta be patient, ya hear?”

So they’d agreed; Ben would go to work so they could scrape by until, like Johnny thought, they found a lead about Reed and Sue (or, like Ben intended, he had enough saved up to get them somewhere better and safer), and Johnny would take care of the house and the car. The kid had always been good at that stuff, always liked cooking.

Or he had, until he lost his powers.

“You didn’t see him,” Johnny said, returning to the pot of whatever it was he had on the stove. Ben had seen cabbage and refused to investigate further. Seemed like the kid was really in some kind of Latverian mood. “During the battle with Doom who became Galactus – he _listened to me_. I told him to trust us and he _did_.” He gave the contents of the pot a stir, staring down into their murky depths. “So now I’m trusting him. That’s my choice, Ben.”

He was right; Ben hadn’t seen that. But Ben had seen Doom down in that cavern, fighting that version of himself. Johnny hadn’t been there. Johnny hadn’t seen the hate in Doom’s eyes when he’d struck the final blow.

Ben knew killers, and Ben knew Doom. Ben knew Johnny best of all.

 _You will get Jonathan killed_ , Doom had said, when they’d first got to this world, but that wasn’t right. Ben was protecting Johnny. Ben was always protecting Johnny – from the world, from Doom, from himself.

“You can trust a shark not to bite ya, kid,” he said. “But it’s still a shark. A big ol’ green shark.”

 

* * *

 

If Ben thought Johnny was bad about Doom, he was a hundred times worse about the Spider. Ben knew he shouldn’t have been surprised; Johnny rarely let his head rule his heart, and never when Peter Parker was involved. Ben shouldn’t have pushed him whenever the subject came up, should’ve just shut up and let Johnny burn it out of his system, but he couldn’t help it, and Johnny wouldn’t leave well enough alone.

“He’s not well, Ben!” Johnny said, hand pressed to his chest like his heart was breaking, and Ben didn’t know how much more of this he could take. “He’s hurting! I know Peter, I know him better than anyone, and he would never do this! He needs help, or… or…”

He trailed off, searching for something, any kind of excuse. Ben had heard them all. Maybe the Spider was possessed. Maybe it was a Skrull. Maybe some psychic had gotten their hooks in his mind. Maybe it was Doc Ock again, hijacking Peter’s body while the real Spider-Man was helpless to act. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Nothing stuck to the wall. Johnny just couldn’t accept that in this world, Spider-Man had gone bad and there was nothing else to say about it.

“He ain’t Spidey, you know,” Ben said, finally setting his newspaper down. The paper in this universe just couldn’t compare to the Bugle, but then this universe’s J Jonah Jameson had been dead for years. The Spider’s doing, once again, and here Johnny was, pretending this was the same man as the one they knew.

Johnny’s brow creased in confusion.

“Of course he is,” he said. “You saw him.”

“I know what I saw,” Ben said, getting up from his chair. It had been a long, hard day, and Johnny’s refusal to just shut up about the Spider was working his last nerve. “I know who he is. Doesn’t matter. Not our world, not our Spider-Man.”

“But Ben,” Johnny said, almost pleadingly, “it’s still Peter, deep down. You have to believe that. If we can help him, I mean… What if – what if it was Alicia?”

It was a mistake. Ben could see that Johnny knew that as soon as he’d said it. He went red in the cheeks, glancing away sharply. He turned to the dishes, but Ben wasn’t about to let him off that easy.

“What if Alicia – my Alicia, five nothing, a hunnerd pounds soaking wet, _blind Alicia_ – wuz an insane warlord with super strength running gladiator matches to get her rocks off?” Ben asked, slamming his fist down on the table. “You really think that’s the same?”

“It was an – it was just an example,” Johnny mumbled, still looking away.

Ben had made his point. He should have let it drop. He knew he should have.

“I love Alicia,” he said instead, and Johnny actually flinched.

“I know,” he said.

“Alicia loves _me_ ,” Ben said.

“I don’t – what does _that_ mean?” Johnny asked, finally turning back towards him.

“For the luvva – even wearing half a skinned lion and actin’ like an entire loony bin, you can’t get over him, can you?” Ben demanded, sweeping his hand out, as if to show Johnny how ridiculous it was, that even here, even with everything that had happened, he could still be so head over heels for Spider-Man.

“I – I don’t –” Johnny choked out. His face was red. Ben shouldn’t have been doing this. They both knew. “I-It’s not like that.”

He was tripping over his own words. Ben always hated it when he did that. It reminded him of Johnny’s leg, burned by hellfire, of him stumbling over his words in a doctor’s office, of Franklin shut down and silent. It was wrong to miss those days, but Ben would have taken that Reed, scarred face and angry soul, over no Reed in an instant. All Johnny’s stammer did was remind Ben of what they’d lost.

“You know what I bet happened?” Ben asked, getting right in Johnny’s face. “I bet he killed ya.”

“Stop it,” Johnny said, barely a whisper. He shrank away from Ben, so Ben took another step forward.

“I bet that’s how it happened,” he said. “You hangin’ around him with those sad puppy dog eyes, all lovestruck –” Johnny jerked back like he’d been struck, but now that Ben was saying it, he couldn’t stop “—all, _let me fix it, Spider-Man. Oh, please, Spider-Man._ ”

“Ben, stop,” Johnny said, louder now, fumbling backwards, still trying to get away from Ben. To get away from the truth about him and Spider-Man. His eyes were blown wide and his face was pale. Ben could see his hands shaking. “Stop, seriously –”

He tripped over one of their ramshackle kitchen chairs. Ben’s hand shot out to grab him by the front of his threadbare tank, reeling him in before he could hit the floor and hurt himself.

All he was ever trying to do was keep Johnny from hurting himself.

“He snapped your neck and you probably still loved him for it,” Ben said, right in Johnny’s face. “And I bet he didn’t even care.”

He guessed he shouldn’t have been surprised when Johnny hit him, Ben’s face snapping to the side from the force of the blow. He tasted blood and was for one strange moment proud of the kid. After all, he’d been the one to teach him how to punch.

Silence rang out. Johnny slipped from Ben’s grip as Ben brought his hand up to touch his jaw. It took him a moment before he could look at Johnny, shame sitting heavy in his chest. Johnny’s eyes were still wide, his chest heaving. He held his fist like he couldn’t quite believe he’d used it.

“Your hand alright?” Ben asked after a beat, rubbing at his jaw.

Johnny’s eyes welled with tears.

“I wish I still had my powers,” he said, swallowing hard, “so I could set you on fire.”

Then he turned and left the house, slamming the kitchen’s back door as he went. Ben didn’t go after him. He knew he should have. He knew he should have apologized. Instead he just sank into one of the kitchen chairs, touching his jaw and hating himself.

It hadn’t been true, anyway. As soon as he’d been able to find a library, he’d looked it up. He’d had to do it on microfiche, scrolling until his eyes hurt and the words blurred, but he’d finally found it. This world’s Johnny Storm had died as a result of the injuries he’d sustained from a mob seeking revenge for the Stamford incident. Never mind that Johnny hadn’t even been involved in that. Never mind that Johnny always did his best to never hurt civilians, ever. Never mind that the kid had the biggest heart Ben had ever seen, made up of equal parts fire and love.

The fire was gone, and now Ben was trying to choke the love out of him, too.

He remember when Johnny had been lying in that hospital bed, so still and pale, after the crowd had done their best to beat him to death for the crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He didn’t need to look up what had happened to this world’s version of himself. This world’s Johnny had died, and that was all he needed to know.

He wondered, as he made up the couch for the night, what would have happened to this world’s Peter Parker if Johnny had lived. He wondered if it would have made any difference.

By morning Johnny had returned. Ben awoke to the smell of frying eggs and fresh coffee. Johnny’s back was turned towards Ben, his shoulders stiff. He only grunted when Ben told him good morning.

Sighing, Ben put his hands on Johnny’s shoulders, shaking him lightly. There was a fresh burn on Johnny’s hand, likely where oil had splattered up when he’d started to fry the eggs, and Ben gripped him tighter for a second before easing up.

“Come on, John,” he said. “You know I just don’t wanna see you get hurt.”

“Too late for that,” Johnny mumbled. “Sit down, I made you breakfast.”

The coffee tasted burnt, but then Ben guessed he deserved that.

 

* * *

 

The heat of the fire was incredible. It stung his eyes and his lungs, blistering at his skin, and Ben forced himself to keep going, calling Johnny’s name. It was a bitter thing to think about how, just months before, Ben would have been able to walk through the blaze not comfortably, but unscathed. How he wouldn’t have had to worry about Johnny running into a burning building.

Now the fire threatened to consume them both.

At first, Ben couldn’t see, and he was worried that Victor’s prophecy was about to come true. He’d started this entire journey so Johnny wouldn’t hurt himself, and now Johnny had run headlong into a burning building. All because Ben had lied to him.

He called Johnny’s name again, and then he spotted him, blurry through the shimmer of the flames. He was collapsed on the kitchen floor, curled in on himself. Relief flooded Ben’s veins, more powerful than the heat. He’d found Johnny. Johnny was alive.

Ben must have carried Johnny a hundred, two hundred times over their lifetimes. It had never been as hard as it was carrying him out of that burning shack. It had nothing to do with Ben’s powers being gone, and it had nothing to do with the flames. When he dumped Johnny onto the soft green grass, Johnny just lay there.

“What in the blazes were ya thinkin’?” Ben had to stop to cough for a moment, choking on the smoke. Johnny just laid there, like a broken doll. “What’s so…?”

And then he spotted it, lying in Johnny’s outstretched hand. The picture of the four of them, him and Johnny and Reed and Suzie, all sitting around a table together and laughing. The picture that Johnny had brought with him, had hung up in the kitchen so he could look at it while he cooked.

Ben wished he could remember the day it was taken, or what had made them all laugh like that, but the truth was that he couldn’t. It looked like a good time. There had been a lot of good times.

“Aw, Johnny,” he said. There was no point lying anymore. “I’m sorry… Stretch left me the multisect and… told me to explore with ya. You were in such a bad place, I… I thought it was the only way to get you out of the quicksand you were in…”

Johnny clutched the picture like a lifeline. “You treated me like a child.”

Ben reached out to grip his arm, intending to take his hand, to pull him up, to – something. He didn’t know. It didn’t matter; Johnny yanked himself away from him, clumsily rolling onto his back on the grass, so Ben sat up and didn’t try to touch him again. All he’d wanted to do was fix things, put a bandaid on Johnny’s heart until he was healed enough on his own. He thought it would help, the adventuring. Even Reed had thought it would help. Instead Ben had just made everything worse.

“Yeah, I was depressed,” Johnny said, addressing the night sky far up above him. It was funny; on this world, Ben could see the stars so clear, but the constellations all looked alien. He thought Reed would’ve still known what they were. Ben looked away from them as Johnny sat up, unable to give into the urge to put his hand on the kid’s back to help him. “A little lost. But that didn’t give you the right. I was working through it! I was…”

Ben shut his eyes and saw it all over again: Johnny, falling from the sky. Johnny, lighting up last minute. Johnny had already known he was losing his flame, and he’d still soared up into the atmosphere until all his fire died out and let himself plummet back to earth. How many times had Reed or Sue had to catch him after a move like that? And then there was Johnny, falling, all by himself. No one to catch him.

That wasn’t working through it. Ben knew damn well what that was. His eyes prickled as his throat grew tight.

Johnny’s sharp inhale broke him out of his thoughts.

“Now – now I have to g-grieve for them all over again,” Johnny said, his voice wet and miserable. Ben didn’t have to look at him – Ben couldn’t look at him – to know that Johnny was crying. “We’re stuck in another universe.” He broke off to sob, heartbroken and horrible, and all Ben could think was that he’d done this to him. “I’ve – hhh – l-lost my best friend…”

Ben hung his head. Johnny sobbed for a second, his shoulders shaking, and Ben wanted to go back. Take the phone off the hook. Tell Amadeus not to tell Johnny anything, no matter what, to always go through Ben first.

He never should have taken him away from their world.

“And we’re going to die here,” Johnny mumbled, mostly into his knees.

 _No_ , Ben wanted to protest. He wanted to take Johnny by the shoulders and shake him. No, that wasn’t how the story went. They were the Fantastic Four, and they weren’t dying on some two-bit alternate earth, that wasn’t _right_.

But Reed and Sue were gone. Their powers were gone. They weren’t the Fantastic Four anymore. They were just Ben and Johnny – and Ben had gone and ruined that too.

He remembered when they’d arrived on this earth, and suddenly Victor’s voice rang in his ears, harsh and metallic: _You will get Jonathan killed._

If there was one thing on this or any other earth Ben couldn’t stand, it was letting Victor Von Doom be right.

He closed a hand over the back of Johnny’s neck, sweat-soaked and clammy. Johnny didn’t pull away so much as curl in on himself, his face practically buried in his knees. Ben slid his hand up into Johnny’s hair, sweaty and without its usual luster, before he shook him a little.

“Come on,” he said, voice rough with smoke. “Johnny, get up.”

“Why?” Johnny asked, sniffing. Ben squeezed his shoulder, forcing himself to his feet. Everything ached, but that didn’t matter.

“Because we gotta,” Ben said, taking a step forward. “It’s the only thing I know how to do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out with me at [tumblr!](http://traincat.tumblr.com)


End file.
